Donegal House and attached railings

Donegal House is a house, built in 1730, and now used as council offices. It was possibly designed by Francis Smith of Warwick for James Robinson. The house is constructed of brick with stucco and ashlar dressings, and has a parapeted roof with brick stacks. It follows an early Georgian style, arranged over three storeys with a basement and a double-depth plan.

The front features a symmetrical five-window range. It includes a plaster plinth with a ground floor sill band, end Doric pilasters with a triglyph entablature blocks, a top cornice and a stone-coped brick parapet with plaster terminals. The parapet breaks forward over the windows in five sections. The entrance features an aedicule with attached Doric columns, an entablature and a segmental pediment, leading to an eight-fielded panel door (two glazed), accessed by steps, with plain iron handrails. The basement has segmental-headed windows with keys. Other windows have shaped lintels with keys, with 6/9-pane sashes to the ground floor and 6/9-pane sashes with sills and aprons to the first floor. The second floor windows are segmental-headed and have twelve-pane sashes. The central first-floor window has an eared and shouldered architrave with a triglyph ‘key’, frieze and pediment, and the window above has a similar architrave with shaped top and key.

Iron area railings to the left have decorative heads, and a 1928 clock is set on enriched brackets to the left. At the rear, there is a cogged brick frieze with a datestone just below. The rear has varied fenestration, with the ground floor including a pegged cross casement, some 6/9-pane sashes and a round-headed stair window with a small-paned sash.

The interior, though inaccessible due to refurbishment in 1990, originally included an open-well staircase with slender turned balusters, panelled rooms and window shutters.

The house was used by the Marquess and Earl of Donegal, who lived at Fisherwick Hall from 1761 until 1799. In 1910, it was purchased to serve as an extension to the Guildhall.